I have just installed Peppermint 3 on a friend’s Dell Inspiron 1501. All went well except that the Connection icon in the system tray (bottom right of screen) says:
Wireless Networks:
Device not ready (firmware missing)
I have added the network via the Network Manager but the message continues to deny that the firmware exists. For the record; the wireless system on this machine worked fine in the previous, Vista installation.
Any ideas?
Hi Keith
Have you checked in “Additional Drivers” to see if there is a proprietory driver available for that chipset, You may have a Broadcom chipset and I’m sure there was some issue with Broadcom drivers not included in the installation of Peppermint 3 for some commercial licensing reasons
EDIT
if you want to check what wireless chipset you have type in the terminal
lshw -c network
Hi Graeme.
You are absolutely right - the Broadcom driver was missing.
Unfortunately, when I attempted to download it, the system crashed - twice!
This looks like a more difficult problem. Do you have any experience of this?
Just seen your Edit. The output from the lshw command is:
*-network
description: Network controller
product: BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN
vendor: Broadcom Corporation
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:05:00.0
version: 01
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=b43-pci-bridge latency=0
resources: irq:18 memory:c0200000-c0203fff
The Connection icon no longer lists a wired-connection option at all - not even greyed out, as before.
Sorry Keith
My knowledge and experience is very limited but I think you need to connect your laptop to the router via ethernet then when you have an internet connection type this command into the terminal
sudo apt-get install b43-fwcutter firmware-b43-installer
as per this post
http://peppermintos.net/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=4799
but it may be better to wait till our lord and master (Mark) or someone more savvy comes along to advise you as I wouldn’t want to be responsible for screwing things up for you
Good luck
Graeme
OK, on the Peppermint3 PC, create a folder on the desktop called b43offline
On another PC
Download the b43-fwcutter_xxx-x_xxxx.deb file for your architecture from one of the mirrors at this link:
http://packages.ubuntu.com/precise/utils/b43-fwcutter
and place it in the b43offline directory you created on your desktop)
Once you have the b43-fwcutter_xxx-x_xxxx.deb file in the b43offline directory on your desktop … open a terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run:
cd ~/Desktop/b43offline
then
sudo dpkg -i b43-fwcutter*
On another PC with internet access … download these 2 (firmware) files:-
http://mirror2.openwrt.org/sources/broadcom-wl-5.10.56.27.3_mipsel.tar.bz2
and
http://downloads.openwrt.org/sources/wl_apsta-3.130.20.0.o
and copy them both to the b43offline directory you created on the Peppermint desktop.
Open a terminal, and run these commands in sequence:
cd ~/Desktop/b43offline
then
tar -xjvf broadcom-wl-5.10.56.27.3_mipsel.tar.bz2
then
sudo b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware broadcom-wl-5.10.56.27.3/driver/wl_apsta/wl_prebuilt.o
then
sudo b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware wl_apsta-3.130.20.0.o
then
sudo chmod 755 /lib/firmware/b43
then
sudo chmod 755 /lib/firmware/b43legacy
then
sudo modprobe -r b43
(don’t worry if that command fails … just carry on below
then
sudo modprobe b43
Wireless adapters that use the b43 drivers should now spring to life
If that doesn’t work … try changing to the b43legacy driver with:
sudo modprobe -r b43
then
sudo modprobe b43legacy
Let me know which (if any) of those 2 drivers worked … b43 or b43legacy
–
inxi -F output:
the first line should tell you if it’s 32 or 64 bit
Thanks, Graeme.
inxi -S
will tell you if it’s 64bit or 32bit without all the other output.
will tell you if it's 64bit or 32bit without all the other output.
I knew that 
Sorry: I deleted my silly queries before checking that you had both replied - I wasn’t being rude!
And yes - everything sprang into life immediately!
Thank you both very much for your prompt and effective advice. I don’t know what I would do without your help.
Keith
Yeah I have to agree Mark was quite helpfull as well
glad you got it working
Graeme
Check it survives a reboot.
Ah! Funny you should mention that. It didn’t.
I tried:
sudo modprobe -r b43
sudo modprobe b43legacy
but that doesn’t connect the wireless.
May I beg your advice once more?
run:
sudo modprobe b43
did wireless spring to life ?
if so, run:
sudo gedit /etc/modules
and add a single NEW LINE at the bottom that reads:-
b43
Save the file … reboot to test.
If that works, let me know … because it might be a good idea to install firmware-b43-installer from the repos now.
–
Yep - the wireless connection worked on reboot, too, so all is well.
If others are having similar difficulty, then it would a good idea to have the installer in the repositories.
My thanks yet again! My mate now has an ex-Vista laptop running Peppermint flawlessly.
Keith
The installer is in the repositories … it’s just that without a wired connection you had no way of getting it.
Ah, I understand.
In fact, then, I didn’t need another PC as I am knee-deep in Ethernet cables. OK, so I exaggerate. I did cotton on eventually and didn’t bother with the second PC.
The owner of the laptop has only wireless so I needed to get it going.
You’re a star.
Keith
Yeah, I only gave you the OFFLINE instructions as you said the wired connection wasn’t working